03/27/2015

The pattern I tested awhile back is now available! I love how this turned out and my kids and I fight over who gets to wear it daily. I love that it fits me too! And shawls are perfect to give you some extra warmth for spring! You can find the pattern here.

03/25/2015

Hello! I feel like a bit of a stranger in this space! Let's catch up, shall we? My family ended up with the curse of influenza hitting me the hardest last week. 2 1/2 weeks it took to get through all of us and I'm so glad it's gone!

Last weekend the two big girls and I drove 6 hours to my aunt and uncle's house for the weekend. We sewed all. weekend. long. It was so fun and we made so much stuff. We had three sewing machines and we learned to use a serger. It was nice to each have our own machine to speed things up.

First up for Alli was a bonnet. She even made a Little House on the Prairie dress!

Lauren also sewed a tack bag to keep all her horse brushes in. We hardly had patterns for anything and they watched how to make their own. I hope they remember how to do it.

Their new dresses.

I came home and sewed more stuff. Like a new make-up bag. And I am currently working on two more dresses for Kate.

We went to the fabric store (Joann's) and restocked Monday. The girls are each working on dresses too.

The last two days we drove and hour away and the two big girls took the state assessment tests for 4 hours each day. I'm so glad to be home now. But glad I had four hours each day with the other two. I took Austin to Buffalo Wild Wings and his eyes about popped out of his head at all the TV's. It was fun! And then we went to Barnes and Noble and sat in the children's section and read all the books. It's Kate's favorite thing to do.

We are home for the rest of the week. And then I leave for a girls trip to Texas Sunday to see the Junk Gypsies! And shop at 25 long miles of antiques! I'm excited and tired all at the same time thinking about it. But there's snow on the ground here and it's going to be 80 in Texas.

03/05/2015

It's currently 10 degrees out and full sunshine. I think all the animals are excited to get out of the barn! Lauren has cleaned all her horse brushes and is in full force grooming mode. The snow is still pretty deep outside otherwise we'd be letting the horse out today. He'll get his chance tomorrow. I can already picture him making his snow angels! Lauren can't wait to get out and ride him in just a few months. He's going to want to run!!

Alli is "training" her lambs. She goes out and reads to them and lets them out so they will follow her around. They are so fun and playful!

The thought of everything that needs to be done outside makes my head spin. My poor husband. Luckily we have a little boy who loves to dig holes with the post hole digger so I'm hoping we can help out quite a bit this summer while he's at work. Lots more fencing this year but when you have animals does fencing ever stop?

The garden seeds are started and I'm off to plant seed in the pasture. Two things to check of the list! Happy Thursday to you!

03/04/2015

That heading is a powerful statement to me. It's quoted out of the Tuesday's with Morrie book. I highly recommend it if you haven't read it. Over the past few years I've had to come to terms with being different. It was hard. I garden, homeschool, make my own deodorant, can our food, and knit! My high school peeps would laugh if they saw me now. But once I gave up getting a college degree to start a family I found myself. All those long days with babies and diapers allowed me to find a creative side I didn't know existed. And now I love that I'm different.

Society doesn't define me by the car I drive, the house I live in, or the clothes we where. Do you know how freeing that is?!

So wouldn't I be a giant hypocrite if I let workbooks tell me how to educate my kids? We are struggling right now with language. More specifically, prepositional phrases, diagramming, the grammar side of it. As I think about it I think it's as ridiculous to teach this as giving a baby a Hepatitis B shot straight out of the womb. It's to early!! I'm done teaching it. I know it's on college entrance exams and blah, blah, blah. But for my kids college is an option but certainly not the only way. And I think if they want to learn it when they're sixteen they will have a heck of a better understanding of it then.

If we teach our kids about things they are interested in they retain it. Otherwise it's like a chute. In one ear out the other and they'll never remember it again. What's the point of that? My girls love to write, imagine, and make up stories. So I've gotten some old books out. And that's what we are going to do. Not what society tells me we should be doing. Are you catching on that I don't like society anyway?! :)

I'm excited to write with them again. And maybe throw some story cubes in there too. And if I'm worried they aren't getting the grammar side? I'll pick a couple sentences and they can find the nouns, adjectives, and verbs. But really let them use their imaginations and have fun. It will help them develop a love of learning that will stay with them for the rest of their life.

03/02/2015

It was sunny yesterday and actually felt nice out. A burst of spring cleaning hit me because I scrubbed and cleaned for about 6 hours. I can't wait to put a bucket on the front porch for everyone's shoes! At the back door Heath made a boot rack out of pvc for chore boots. Right now it's all in my house and the mudroom is living up to it's name. 18 days until Spring!